Noble Obsession: Charles Goodyear, Thomas Hancock, and the Race to Unlock the Greatest Industrial Secret of the Nineteenth Century
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.31 (799 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0786867892 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 274 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2017-10-06 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
With his "debilitating lack of business sense" and an "almost superhuman capacity to endure," only Goodyear was dogged enough to stumble upon vulcanization. This is generally a fascinating portrait of the transitional period in America's progress from farmland to factory and, eventually, to freeway.Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. Slack is Goodyear's advocate throughout, judiciously slicing through the self-serving arguments of Goodyear's adversaries. . The turning point was the 1839 discovery of vulcanization, whereby the heated addition of sulfur permits rubber to retain its shape regardless of temperature. Goodyear was the implacable, obsessed true believer who made possible "the great shock absorber of the industrial age." Slack (Blue Fairways) ably chronicles the inspiration
Rubber was to the 1830s what the Internet boom was to the 1990s: a flawed but potentially world-altering discovery that made and destroyed fortunes. Noble Obsession is a riveting work of history that reads like enthralling fiction. Filled with villains, con men, and entrepreneurs, and brimming with fascinating facts about the science and business of rubber, Noble Obsession takes readers from the jungles of Brazil to the laboratories of Europe to the courtrooms of America to tell one of the strangest and most affecting sagas in the history of human discovery.. It tells how Goodyear, a single-minded genius, risked his own life and his familys in a quest to unlock the secrets of rubber, and how Thomas Hancock, the scholarly English inventor who raced against Goodyear, ultimately robbed him of fame and fortune. It took the vision, courage, and perseverance of one manCharles Goodyearto reinvent rubber into the indispensable substance it is to
This is a rubber world S. ragno The book is well researched and sheds some light on one of the most important , while least famous, scientific discovery of our time: the modern rubber processing.While telling this story, the author does also a great job in portraying with vivid colors some aspects of the life and society of 1800 America.Goodyear devotes his existence to study and modify the behavior of the rubber and during this pursuit endures poverty, frequent prison stints and health deterioration. But most of all he neglects completely the needs of his fam. Amazon Customer said And you thought Enron was bad !. Everyday from the elastic bands in the office to the tires on planes and automobiles, rubber keeps the world moving and together. The story of how it went from an impractical curiosity to a modern marvel of science is the subject of this fascinating story.Charles Goodyear was a failed businessman with a determination to wrest from India-gum rubber the secret of the age. How to prepare the substance so it could withstand the extremes of heat and cold. Without this knowledge all rubber products were doomed to a short life span and. "A Readable History" according to Rick Mitchell. Some pieces of history just do not seem to be the stuff of entertaining books - such as the history of rubber. Mr. Slack turns this bit of history into a thoroughly entertaining and informative book. Of course, he had the whacky Charles Goodyear to help along the way. To say Goodyear was obsessive would be to understate the case.Mr. Slack weaves the efforts of Goodyear and his rivals to make rubber a useful commodity into a compelling read. Goodyear's successful efforts - after years of amusing failures - are purloined along the